Project "Friends"

I don't want any more project "friends". In fact I am going to be careful to avoid people who want to turn me into a project or want to "fix me". I can befriend people fast online and have found various friend soulmates via the internet. It seems like the Internet is my mecca of friendship and social connection while the real world, it just seems harder.

One thing I noticed that happened to me is I seemed to hook up with all these people who wanted to FIX ME.

Disabled people are very prone to project "friends". Legions of church ladies will go befriend the disabled lady to prove their holiness to their congregation. Some will be seeking bennies for heaven, in being your friend. They can fool you smiling at you, and you think there is mutual like and sharing of the minds there. You even make them laugh but watch out, inside they are horrified by you. Think of the Movie, "My Fair Lady", but with two females instead, they want to whip you into shape.  Changing your speech patterns, social personality and more. Often they will direct you to some volunteer projects and will insist on you "improving" yourself. They will tell you things like "Let's not talk about that now!" or "Lets be more positive now!"

If anyone wants to fix me, goodbye. I'm done with it. This doesn't mean not trying to progress but I am tired of being tested and given hoops and endless goal posts that are always moving from other people. I am tired of being told that it's my fault spiritually or that I am a bad person or I have to do this and that to be deemed worthy of existence. Is this something my ACON upbringing gave me? Falling into this pit of dealing with these people who put me in this position. I don't think many people would put up with it.

I am tired of being judged for my feelings. Some of these people have had completely different lives from my own where they had good health and close families who were always there for them. I don't expect everyone to "get it" but it seems a few of these church going types could dig into their cold hearts for a little bit of compassion.  They do not know what it is like to be running away from someone coming at them with a knife or what it is like to dig food out of a trashcan. If you think I'm a freak, next time just walk away, don't waste my time.

I am tired of being judged for my health. So your body works and you don't have severe obesity and can eat food and don't look like a melting candle from the waist down. Maybe I should have showed the projects how I really felt, and laid in bed crying and groaning from all the pain I was really in. My stiff upper lip stuff failed. They don't think you are brave, they are embarrassed by you and consider you a lesser being.

Next time I feel like I have to walk on eggshells or censor myself around someone, I may as well not waste my time. If someone tries to control my speech, and tell me what to talk about or tell me my feelings are wrong or too extreme, or if my problems are "too great" for their self help group and my pain embarrasses them, I should just walk out and slam the door. Otherwise I will be pouring energy into an already doomed relationship.

This may be partially my fault, as I have so many problems and a life that seems spiraling out of control and a body from Hades itself so maybe I present myself in a way that draws these people out of the woodwork. Some may have good intentions even from the start but they really hurt people like me. It is just another person telling me I am "bad", "wrong" and "not measuring" up.

I may present myself with too much pity and pathos. It's probably my fault. Stir together Aspergers, bad health problems and an INFP personality too, and well, I'm too sensitive for this world. This means keeping more of my problems to myself as the new answer.

Many of these types will fool you easily. They can appear to have empathy and to "care" even with all the volunteer and other projects they take on and even "help" they do. But it seems when push comes to shove and you are crying and upset, that empathy vaporizes like a fart in the wind. If you make the "error" of refuting them or standing up for yourself, they discard and devalue pretty quick.

Sadly you find out their lack of respect for you eventually and it usually has to do with how they treat you regarding other people. Just like our narcissistic mothers threw us scapegoats overboard for everyone from the milk man to a cousin, the same likewise will apply to "project friends". They won't stand up for you even if someone insults you to your face several times with your husband witnessing it and telling them because you are a lower social status. Sometimes they claim they stood up for you but will be pissed off and resentful about it.  They won't have your back. They will go running to talk to someone else even if you are mid-sentence with them.

I guess I can die of boredom behind a fake smile. Of course when I try to fake it, it never worked either. Sometimes you will think there is even mutual sharing of challenges, and that you are balancing things out nicely but supposed they can vent while you are always a complainer. My life seems to have been one of sinking into the wallpaper and/or opening my mouth and pissing everyone off. Now that I am old, hopefully the "Fix-It" and "Improve-It" Queens will find a younger victim. I'd rather be a friend to someone eating out of a trashcan and living in the park rather then another woman who will tsk her tongue at my bad housekeeping or get angry at me for having feelings or who will tell me I need to do this and that to be a "worthwhile" person.

American society and me don't go together well. I'm a crappy stoic. I smile but the sadness still comes through in the eyes. I'm bad at hiding depression or anger. I would flunk salesman school and charm school. Maybe some think they can solve my problems of no money and health from the gates of hell. If I can't fix then how can you? I have failed to solve them and I'm tired. I just want to live in peace and be left alone now.

I had this one friend who was one of these types in my old rural town, and I feel like I repeated the same scenario with the latest friend. This friend was older, very religious in a mainstream church and had 4 children. I met this one when I was still in the Catholic church. I would go eat at her house and even befriended her children. We got along pretty well, but then things got kind of weird. She started the "project" stuff.

She wanted to get me another friend saying that this woman who was in and out of the mental hospital every week and who had made several suicide attempts in a row, would be my new perfect friend. Now I am open to everyone even people with severe mental problems, but it really worried me in that she saw this very troubled person as my peer instead of herself. I was not in the psych ward, I was a newly disabled ex-residential counselor. The whole thing bothered me inside. I was noticing then she was befriending OTHER disabled and very troubled people! A pattern was being set. She also was going through these disabled and troubled people like toilet paper. I was one in a long line. One thing these project friend types will do is seek out troubled people. They can forget their problems while attempting to fix theirs. Some of the more toxic ones will feel superior and better about themselves to have a more "screwed up" person next to them. Sadly our society is so competitive and narcissistic, these things shouldn't even be occurring to people but they do!

I still remember the day she came to my house with 8 boxes. Back then I was a more eager to please personality and she said, "Hey I have something for you! It's a bunch of craft supplies!" I thought "Oh boy!", and took the boxes. It would be a metaphor for the friendship as the boxes were full of scraps and trash, tin cookie cans, ripped up old ribbons, bits of yarn and twisted wires. I ended up throwing away the whole lot except for some old buttons and pieces of pins and beads, I used for a community art project later on. She was moving the very next day and hadn't told me. So much for it being a close friendship. She would later tell a friend she had unfriended me for leaving the Catholic church I don't know, but this was my first run in with a "project friend" or someone who felt they were superior to me. I can't say she was a totally bad person but she was working her way to heaven using me. She rescued me from an ice storm. She helped me with church groups. Was she really a friend? Not really.